JP2006134463A - Information recording and reproducing device and control method - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide an information recording and reproducing device capable of preventing data from permanently being destroyed owing to a physical shock to a recording device such as a hard disk drive which is easily affected by the shock. <P>SOLUTION: A control circuit 2 reads and writes data from/to hard disk drives 3 and 4 alternately while always confirming either of hard disk drive heads is retracted into a shock protection area. For example, while data are read and written from/to the hard disk drive 3, the head of the hard disk drive 4 is retracted into its shock protection area. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2006,JPO&NCIPI

Description

  The present invention relates to an information recording / reproducing apparatus including a recording apparatus such as a hard disk drive that is easily affected by an impact, and a control method thereof.

  As a means for realizing data recovery in the event of a failure in an information recording / reproducing apparatus using a recording apparatus such as a conventional hard disk drive, the RAID system (a technique for managing a plurality of hard disk drives as a single hard disk drive) There are also simply provided with a hard disk drive for backup (see, for example, Patent Document 1).

  FIG. 4 shows a configuration example of a conventional information recording / reproducing apparatus, and FIG. 5 is a flowchart showing an operation procedure of the information recording / reproducing apparatus.

  In FIG. 4, 10 is a central processing unit, 20 is a hard disk drive control circuit, and 30 and 40 are hard disk drives to which data is written and read by the control circuit 20.

  In response to a data read / write request from the central processing unit 10, the control circuit 20 writes the same contents to the hard disk drives 30 and 40. For example, when a failure occurs in the hard disk drive 30, the hard disk drive 30 is replaced, and then all data of the hard disk drive 40 is copied to the replaced normal hard disk drive.

As a result, even if one (or more than one) hard disk drive fails, data can be recovered using the data left on the other hard disk drive that has not failed. .
JP-A-4-23194

  However, in the above-described conventional configuration, for example, when the information recording / reproducing apparatus receives a physical impact such as a drop during data recording / reproduction, it acts on all the hard disk drives at the same time, and all the hard disk drives are affected by the impact. Had a problem that data could not be recovered when it was damaged. In other words, the conventional hard disk drive failure is assumed to occur individually in the hard disk drive, and at the same time, that is, the failure of the information recording / reproducing apparatus with the hard disk drive head positioned on the medium We did not assume that all the hard disk drives would be damaged at the same time, such as damage to the media and head, when subjected to impacts such as falling.

  SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The present invention solves the above-described conventional problems, and an object of the present invention is to provide an information recording / reproducing apparatus capable of preventing permanent destruction of data due to a physical impact on a recording apparatus such as a hard disk drive that is easily affected by an impact. .

  In order to solve the above-described conventional problems, an information recording / reproducing apparatus according to the present invention includes a plurality of recording apparatuses that are easily affected by an impact, and a control apparatus that individually controls data recording / reproduction of the plurality of recording apparatuses. When recording / reproducing data, the control device reliably controls at least one of the plurality of recording devices to be in the impact protection state and performs recording / reproduction of data on the other recording devices. It is characterized by performing.

  With this configuration, the same data is recorded on a plurality of recording devices, so that the reliability of the data is improved and other recording devices are always in a recording / reproducing state and are not affected by the impact. It is possible to restore the data even when the recording / reproducing recording apparatus is damaged due to an impact caused by dropping of the information recording / reproducing apparatus.

  According to the information recording / reproducing apparatus and the control method of the present invention, it is possible to prevent permanent destruction of data in the recording apparatus due to a physical impact such as dropping of the information recording / reproducing apparatus.

  The best mode for carrying out the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings.

(Embodiment 1)
FIG. 1 is a diagram showing a configuration example of an information recording / reproducing apparatus according to Embodiment 1 of the present invention. In FIG. 1, 1 is a central processing unit, 2 is a hard disk drive control circuit, and 3 and 4 are hard disk drives to which data is written and read by the control circuit 2. The control circuit 2 controls the hard disk drives 3 and 4 individually. FIG. 2 is a flowchart showing the operation procedure of this control method.

  In FIG. 1, in response to a data read / write request from the central processing unit 1, the control circuit 2 confirms that the head of one of the hard disk drives is always evacuated to the respective impact protection areas for the hard disk drives 3 and 4. While reading and writing data alternately. For example, while the hard disk drive 3 is reading / writing data, it issues a head withdrawal command to the hard disk drive 4 to retract the head of the hard disk drive 4 to the impact protection area, and reading / writing of the hard disk drive 3 is completed. The head evacuation command is issued, and after confirming that the head of the hard disk drive 3 is evacuated to the impact protection area, the hard disk drive 4 is read / written. In the case of data writing, after confirming that the head of the hard disk drive 3 has been retracted to the impact protection area, data having the same content as the hard disk drive 3 is also written to the hard disk drive 4. Thereafter, a head withdrawal command is issued again to the hard disk drive 4 to retract the head of the hard disk drive 4 to the impact protection area.

  In this way, when the hard disk drive 3 (or 4) suffers a failure due to an impact caused by dropping of the information recording / reproducing apparatus during data reading / writing of one hard disk drive 3 (or 4), the hard disk drive By replacing 3 (or 4) with a normal hard disk drive and copying all data on hard disk drive 4 (or 3) that is not affected by one impact to the newly replaced normal hard disk drive Data recovery is possible.

  Although two hard disk drives are used in this embodiment, two or more hard disks may be used. In this case, data is read and written while confirming that the heads of one or more hard disk drives are always retracted to the impact protection area.

  In this way, since the head of at least one hard disk drive is retracted to the impact protection area during data recording / reproduction, even if another hard disk drive is disturbed by an impact while reading or writing data, the head However, since the data of the hard disk drive saved in the impact protection area is not destroyed, it can be used by copying the data to a normal hard disk drive again.

  Further, although the hard disk drive is used as the present embodiment, the same applies to other information recording / reproducing apparatuses as long as they have a transition to the impact protection state.

(Embodiment 2)
FIG. 3 is a diagram showing a configuration example of an information recording / reproducing apparatus in Embodiment 2 of the present invention. 3, the same components as those in FIG. 1 in the first embodiment are denoted by the same reference numerals, and the description thereof is omitted. The difference from FIG. 1 is that the two hard disk drives in FIG. 1 are replaced with one hard disk drive having two data recording / reproducing units in one housing.

  In FIG. 3, the hard disk drive 5 has a data recording / reproducing unit 5a, 5b that can be individually controlled. The control method assumes that the hard disk drives 3 and 4 are replaced with the data recording / reproducing units 5a and 5b in the flowchart of FIG.

  Although a hard disk drive having two data recording / reproducing units is used in this embodiment, it may be provided with two or more data recording / reproducing units as in the first embodiment.

  Further, although the hard disk drive is used as the present embodiment, the same applies to other information recording / reproducing apparatuses as long as they have a transition to the impact protection state.

  The information recording / reproducing apparatus according to the present invention can prevent the permanent destruction of data of the hard disk drive due to physical impact, and therefore includes an information recording device such as a portable notebook computer equipped with a recording apparatus that is easily affected by impact. Useful for playback devices.

The figure which showed the structural example of the information recording / reproducing apparatus in Embodiment 1 of this invention The flowchart which showed the operation | movement procedure of the information recording / reproducing apparatus of this invention The figure which showed the structural example of the information recording / reproducing apparatus in Embodiment 2 of this invention The figure which showed the structural example of the conventional information recording / reproducing apparatus. A flowchart showing the operation procedure of a conventional information recording / reproducing apparatus

Explanation of symbols

DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 Central processing unit 2 Control circuit 3, 4, 5 Hard disk drive 5a, 5b Data recording / reproducing unit

Claims (5)

A plurality of recording devices that are easily affected by an impact, and a control device that individually controls the recording and reproduction of data for each of the plurality of recording devices. An information recording / reproducing apparatus characterized by controlling at least one of the recording apparatuses so as to surely shift to an impact protection state. A recording apparatus having a plurality of data recording / reproducing means that are easily affected by an impact in a single housing, and a control device that individually controls the recording / reproducing of data for the plurality of data recording / reproducing means, The information recording / reproducing apparatus is characterized in that at the time of recording / reproducing, the control device controls at least one data recording / reproducing means among the plurality of data recording / reproducing means to surely shift to the impact protection state. 3. The information recording / reproducing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the storage device is a hard disk drive, and the transition to the impact protection state is to retract the head. In an information recording / reproduction control method for controlling data recording / reproduction on a plurality of recording units individually, a procedure for reliably transitioning at least one first recording unit to an impact protection state and a transition to an impact protection state reliably An information recording / reproducing control method comprising: a procedure for confirming that the second recording means performs recording / reproduction after confirming that the transition to the impact protection state has been made reliably. After recording on the second recording means, a procedure for making at least one second recording means transition to the impact protection state, a procedure for confirming that the transition to the impact protection state has been made, and an impact protection state 5. The information recording / reproducing method according to claim 4, further comprising: a step of recording the same data as that of the second recording means on the first recording means that has been in an impact protection state after confirming that the transition is surely performed. Control method.

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